Nintendo Makes Its Presence Official In Southeast Asia With Singaporean Website

While there are plenty of ways to get your hands on a Nintendo Switch here in Malaysia, the company doesn’t actually have an official presence. Never mind in the country, the company doesn’t even have an official presence in Southeast Asia. But it looks like this are changing, as the company now has an official Singaporean website.

The website itself is pretty bare bones, and you would be forgiven to go as far as to say that it’s still incomplete. One of the few things that give the impression are the URL for the games. None of them are referred to by name, instead they get a serial number equivalent that’s made up of four letters – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is just “aaaa” for example.

And then there’s the fact that there’s no mention of price pretty much anywhere. Not for the games, nor for the hardware. This may have something to do with the fact that Nintendo also has official stores on Shopee and Lazada, also only for Singapore.

This is quite the change for Nintendo, which has generally left the supply of its hardware to the regional distributor Maxsoft, or M.M.Soft in Malaysia. That being said, it remains to be seen if this will actually change anything for customers, especially when it comes to the prices of hardware.

As for the website itself, it may be a might-as-well move for the company. After all, Universal Studios Singapore is also getting a Super Nintendo World theme expansion which, according to Geek Culture, is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

Survey Shows Southeast Asian Social Media Users Don’t Want Their Financial Info Stored Online

A whopping 76% of social media users said they would choose not to store their financial information online, according to a Kaspersky-YouGov survey of several Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia.

But there are notable gaps between generations. Baby Boomers (85%) show the highest resistance against having their financial data stored online, followed by Gen X (81%), Millennials (75%), and finally Gen Z (68%). It’s possible that this reflects young people’s greater openness to fintech innovations like e-wallets.

In general, social media users in the region don’t want their personally identifiable information (69%), family information (64%), and current location (54%) stored online. But only 47% would choose not to have their job details stored online – probably because of the widespread use of employment and professional networking websites.

“It is a welcome insight that users here are now thinking thoroughly about the data they share and don’t share online. Most also know now that cybercriminals and the general online public should never get their hands on such information. Awareness, however, does not necessarily equate to action,” said Kaspersky Managing Director for Asia Pacific Chris Connell.

Just 54% of Southeast Asian social media users check and change the privacy settings of devices, apps, or services they use, and very unsurprisingly, only 47% avoid illegal or pirated software and applications.

All respondents in the survey, which was conducted last November, were working professionals active on social media. Aside from Malaysia, the other Southeast Asian countries included in the survey were the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Fundraising For Southeast Asia Tech Startups Steady Despite Pandemic

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, fundraising for Southeast Asian tech startups remained steady in 2020, Bloomberg said citing a report by venture capital firm Cento Ventures. Big winners include Grab, Go-Jek and Go-Pay, Bukalapak, and Traveloka – together they received over half of all investment last year.

Tech startups in Southeast Asia raised a total of US$8.2 billion (~RM34 billion) in 2020 – just a 3% drop compared to 2019. Most of that capital (70%) headed to Indonesia, while Malaysia just received a paltry 5% of the total investment volume.

To be fair, Thailand and Vietnam got 5% and 4% respectively. And there’s an obvious reason why Indonesia is such hot real estate – its 270 million plus population.

The bigger picture is that the raging pandemic has barely dampened investment appetite, which is why Grab’s fintech unit raised US$300 million (~RM 1.21 billion) in January. Grab is also mulling a US IPO later this year.

Furthermore, any skittishness about the pandemic-stricken economy is quickly counteracted by the massive demand for e-commerce and contactless payment. Unsurprisingly, over half of tech investment in the region went to super-app companies and online retailers – reaching over US$4 billion (~RM16.6 billion) last year.

And you wonder why everyone and their mother talks about super-apps these days. If anything, the pandemic has made them invaluable to our daily lives.

“2020 offered a harsh reason to reassess how technology can be harnessed to maintain vital function of the society,” said Dmitry Levit, a partner at Cento Ventures, told Bloomberg.